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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28898022">How to Get Your Number Down to Zero</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion'>ArgentDandelion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Infinity Train (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Analysis, Angst, Atonement - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, Character Analysis, Divorce, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Fanwork Research &amp; Reference Guides, Gen, Implied Suicide Attempts, Insecurity, Mentioned Hazel, Mentioned Lake, Meta, Morally Grey Characters, Nonfiction, Personal Growth, Villains to Heroes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:55:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28898022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Analyzes passengers' character arcs to find trends in how to get one's number to zero on the Infinity Train.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Successful Passengers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <b>The author loves comments. Please provide feedback here, or on the author's Tumblr or Pillowfort.</b>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Introduction and Successful Passengers</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The purpose of the train, according to One-One, is “helping passengers”. One-One also says passengers’ “well-being and progress is what the train is all about”, and both he and Amelia Hughes, the former Conductor who took over the train for 33 years, state the train is for sorting out or fixing problems. Passengers’ numbers, according to One-One, are made by the train based on passengers’ lives to help them have the most personalized experiences. He considers numbers (as he puts it: “nice, juicy math”) necessary for emotional growth, and further points out emotional growth in Jesse while going through his memories.</p><p>Passengers’ problems seem to be mixes of “desires” and “approaches”.</p>
<hr/>
<h1>
  <strong>Tulip’s Problem</strong>
</h1><p><strong>Desire:</strong> For things to be as they used to be, before her parents’ divorce.</p><p><strong>Approach:</strong> Avoidance (running away from the changes in her life because she’s afraid); possibly anger as a mild or initial element.</p><p><strong>Character Arc:</strong> “It was all fine before my parents selfishly divorced and ruined everything → their relationship had been deteriorating for years, my life pre-divorce wasn’t entirely happy, and the divorce wasn’t as catastrophically horrible as I remembered”</p><p>Judging by how she talked down One-One in the Unfinished Car, she may have initially blamed herself for the divorce, made it her responsibility to fix it, and thought things would have been different if she were “better”. However, in the same sequence, she seems to admit it was not her fault. Although she, unlike Amelia, seems to have given up on trying to recreate her old life where her parents were together, it seems to have been from thinking it was “beyond her control” to fix: possibly fatalism or frustration, rather than a lack of desire to fix it.</p><p>She had unwittingly altered her own memories so things were very happy before her parents got divorced, when they had actually been arguing for years. That meeting at the kitchen table, where her parents told her they were getting divorced, was neither very happy nor utter misery. When she discovers how much Amelia’s problems paralleled her own, she admitted she was running away from the changes in her life because she was afraid, bringing her number to 0.</p><p>In Tulip’s case, she needs to experience <em>less</em> aggressive responses to conflict or stress. Seven months after she left the train, her parents are still divorced but cooperative and more competent in their new lives, and Tulip no longer seems uncomfortable, but, in her words, “ready for anything”.</p>
<hr/>
<h1>
  <strong>Jesse’s Problem</strong>
</h1><p><strong>Desire</strong>: To be friends with everyone and avoid making people mad at him or dislike him.</p><p><strong>Approach</strong>: Becomes a “mirror” to others by suppresses his own desires and true personality to be liked; becomes a people-pleasing peacekeeper and doesn’t take a stand.</p><p><strong>Arc:</strong> “I can make friends with everyone → but I shouldn’t, because some people would be bad friends to me [e.g., the Apex cult leaders].” Or: “I’m afraid that starting conflict will make me lose relationships, so I suppress my true self and mirror others to make and maintain relationships → and this living reflection has taught me that being someone’s “mirror” stinks, and I should make my own choices and be accepted for who I am”.</p><p>In a way, Jesse’s problem is a <em>virtue</em> misapplied: namely, he might believe he can make friends with anyone, but it comes at the cost of his own happiness and integrity. When his little brother Nate gets involved with his bad-influence friends, he does nothing to prevent them from pushing him off a hill in a dangerous stunt that ended up with his arm broken. The first part of his character arc concludes when he finds himself in a similar situation with bad-influence cool kids who explicitly want to kill his friend Lake (then called M.T.). Earlier in his arc, he might have tried to gently persuade Simon and Grace that what they’re doing is wrong, or sneak out Lake when they aren’t looking. However, after his emotional growth, he instead quickly takes decisive action, denounces them, and tries to leave the Train while holding Lake.</p><p>In contrast to Tulip, Jesse learned to be <em>more</em> aggressive in responding to conflicts or stress, although he’s still a peaceful, friendly person overall.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <sub>Lake’s journey on the Train is similar to a passenger’s, but her desire has nothing to do with fears or insecurities and is very reasonable. Her problem is clearly external: it lies with the train’s systems and the creators and enforcers of those systems. If it weren’t for the fact Flecs had been chasing her for months and trying to kill her, she might have been perfectly happy on the Train. In any case, she cannot be covered due to lacking a number to quantify her emotional growth in this framework.</sub>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Unsuccessful/Still Trapped Passengers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Covers unsuccessful or still-trapped passengers, sorted in chronological order.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<h1>Amelia’s Problem</h1><p>
  <em>(Warning: Covers some depressing subtext in indirect language.)</em>
</p><p><strong>Desire:</strong> Trying to repair the “hole in the universe where Alrick used to be” by “putting it back” (recreating her old life).*<br/>
<strong>Approach</strong>: Going to One-One to get him to make a car recreating her old life, and when he refused, overthrowing the Conductor and making car after car to recreate her old life with Alrick for 33 years.<br/>
<strong>Character Arc</strong>: “Why can’t I get this darn train to make a car where I can live my old life with Alrick→I’m going to undo the damage from my reign as the Conductor and try to get my number down so I can leave, even though it will take a long time”<br/>
Amelia, like Tulip, “ran away from her problems”, both literally and metaphorically. As shown in her tape, some people (possibly some friends) showed up at her home to tell her the funeral for Alrick was starting, but she was an utter wreck who couldn’t even go to the door, who wrapped herself in Alrick’s black cloak. Rather than attend the funeral, she ran away. She was unable to accept a life without Alrick, whether that meant denying he had died<sup><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/640810154388029440/how-to-get-your-number-down-to-zero-part-2-of#fn:1">1</a></sup> or attempting to join him in death (if indeed she sought death).<sup><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/640810154388029440/how-to-get-your-number-down-to-zero-part-2-of#fn:2">2</a></sup> Amelia says in Season 1, Episode 10: “There’s a hole in the universe where Alrick used to be. Why won’t the train just let me put it back?”, which might mean she believes there’s a piece in her life that is merely missing, not destroyed or gone forever.</p><p>It seems the turning point in Amelia’s arc was when she gave up after One-One was put back into the control panel and reinstated as the Conductor. Early in her conversation with Tulip afterward, she says: “I don’t want a life without Alrick!” and starts crying. This is probably significant: during the memory scene when people tell her the funeral is starting, she isn’t crying, whimpering, or making obvious signs of distress. In fact, none of her memories shown depict her crying or with obviously sad facial expressions.<br/>
She might disapprove of crying: when Atticus is hit with the transformation ray and the Steward has Tulip, Tulip cries floods of tears, and the Conductor mockingly says “Aww…no more tears” and wipes away her tears with a handkerchief. In contrast, at the following episode’s start, One-One tells Tulip it’s okay to cry, and cry she does. The idea she is habitually against crying, or other displays of sadness, may be furthermore supported by the subtlety of her expressions of sadness in Season 3, Episode 8, even after she’s spent some time improving.</p><p>Certainly, the passengers that have reached zero have gotten through great, openly expressed emotional discomfort, which, for most, included substantial crying. It may be that Amelia, in hurrying past her trauma or glossing over her turmoil, refused chances for emotional processing or growth. Removing her from power forced her to change her framework, mourn Alrick, adapt to a life without him, and make amends for all her mistakes.</p>
<hr/>
<h1>Grace’s Problem</h1><p><strong>Desire:</strong> A desire for others’ validation, due to a fear of being wrong, disappointing others, and not being enough; needing to avoid being alone.<br/>
<strong>Approach:</strong> Repeatedly lying, deceiving, and making stuff up with no basis to gain the approval of others or control them to her ends; creating a cult of children with her as the much-admired leader, hiding things from others to maintain relationships/admiration<br/>
<strong>Character Arc:</strong> <em>(Abridged for concision)</em> “I’m the admired leader of the Apex, in which denizens are said to not be real people, and are mere toys created by the train to amuse passengers to do with as they wish, including harming and killing them →my inability to confront my fears and the way of life created from them has made everyone suffer and led me to being alone, despite all my attempts to avoid it. I’m going to undo as much of the harm I caused as I can.”</p><p>In Book 2 and early in Book 3, Grace appeared somewhat vain in how she occasionally checked herself out in a compact mirror or in the reflective surface of a denizen’s light. It might be a holdover from wanting to look good for the sake of being validated by others or nor disappointing them, although she is much admired by Apex members, to the point one member even made an outfit much like hers.</p><p>Grace was reluctant to tell Simon about her number dropping because she feared Simon would think less of her for it. Though she initially distrusted Tuba and wanted to separate her from Hazel, if not kill her entirely, she gradually revised her opinion of Tuba, and tearfully mourned her death.</p><p>It’s possible her number dropped prior to “Le Chat Chalet” because of all the time she had spent being friendly to Hazel, a denizen, although she didn’t even know Hazel was a denizen at the time. It’s unclear whether unintentional or inadvertent character growth also counts in getting a number down.</p><p>Her number drops rapidly when she admits her fears while trapped in her memory tape, confronts being wrong, and apologizes to an image of Hazel. She leaves the tape after she raises a hand in goodbye to a memory of Hazel, thus giving her a resolution, unhappy as it is, to that section of her life. When she confronts Simon back at the Apex, she tries to undo the ideology she created and repeatedly tries to save Simon from himself. The endpoints of their arcs are well-summarized by the following exchange:</p><p><strong>Grace:</strong> “We’ve been doing it wrong! We can still change!” (down at least three digits) </p><p><strong>Simon:</strong> “Why would I ever want to change if I’m always right?” (up at least five digits)</p>
<hr/>
<h1>Simon’s Problem (Speculative):</h1><p>
  <em>How Simon got onto the Train is not shown; even supplemental statements by Owen Dennis (of dubious canon; in the same tweet he said the Train is a reality show for aliens) are vague. The following is based on educated guesses.</em>
</p><p><strong>Problem (Speculative):</strong> Insecurity born of unstable attachments, leading to excessive or “clingy” focus on very few people (i.e., Grace); fear of abandonment, fear of being wrong/admitting such.<br/>
<strong>Approach:</strong> Gaining secure attachment/fulfilling relationships through Grace; gaining purpose, power, and control by being the second-in-command of the Apex.<br/>
<strong>Character Arc</strong>: <em>(Abridged for concision)</em> “I am happy and secure with my relationship with Grace and about my beliefs about denizens and the train’s purpose → Grace betrayed the Apex and me, so I’m not going to listen any more and shall kill her.” (and then he is killed by a Ghom)</p><p>It’s much less clear what issues or turmoil got Simon on the Train, because his story before the train isn’t shown, and he doesn’t outright talk about it. Most likely, it has something to do with emotional insecurity, created by or related to unstable attachments, leading to a fear of abandonment (which possibly developed into a desire to enforce “loyalty” in ‘dictator mode’) and, as a product of that, a fear of being wrong or admitting such.</p><p>The idea Simon’s problem is related to a fear of being wrong, or admitting it, comes how he not once ever admits to being wrong or doing the wrong thing or apologizes. He very rarely even uses the word “sorry”, much less in a sincere way.<sup><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/640810154388029440/how-to-get-your-number-down-to-zero-part-2-of#fn:3">3</a></sup> (When he backs down when Grace tells him to not do something, he typically says “okay” in a subdued voice, not “sorry.”) He doesn’t even make the most paper-thin and perfunctory apology to Hazel for killing Tuba, even seeing how distressed she is, even when told letting Hazel have a funeral has practical benefits. The closest he comes to admitting he was wrong is telling Grace: “You were right not to trust her [Amelia]!” He only acknowledges the possibility Amelia (not a man, as he had assumed) is indeed the “True Conductor” in a hypothetical: “And even if she was [the True Conductor], she’s lost her way!”. Even for a confident and arrogant kind of person, Simon’s habits are extreme.</p><p>Judging by how strongly Simon responds to being called “a child”, it’s possible that characterization relates to the trauma that put him on the train. Although it’s possible people calling him “a child” in a condescending or mocking way is part of it, the most probable interpretation is that it relates to him being wrong or not knowing what he’s doing. When he leaves The Cat’s chalet in season 3, episode 7, he says: “I’m not a child anymore. I know what I’m doing.”) In the next episode, Amelia aggressively says: “Have you ever considered that you’ve been wrong? Hah! Of course not! You’re a child.“</p><p>Most likely, he cries upon seeing the “We won’t tell Simon” memory due to a fear of abandonment or betrayal. When Grace saves him, the second sentence he says is “Samantha left me!” as he starts sobbing. (He doesn’t ever wonder where Samantha is or whether she’s safe.) In Season 3, Episode 7, he briefly cries again when recalling how Samantha abandoned him.</p><p>Perhaps the most obvious potential turning point in Simon’s arc when when he saw the secret Grace had been keeping from him. He could have concluded many things from this, whether concerning his moral culpability, being wrong about denizens, or using tougher tactics to talk things out with Grace or even friend-dump her, which all had some probability of lowering his number. Instead, he concludes something along the lines of: “In keeping that secret from me, in choosing Hazel over me, Grace betrayed me.”</p><p>Another obvious potential turning point is when he exits Grace’s memories and seems numb or regretful of what he’s done. Though he could have undone or minimized the damage then, he only makes a dismissive “hmmph” and walks away. The last point he had to turn back was when he asked why Grace had saved him on the bridge next to the Mall Car (Season 3, Episode 10), and he thought over Grace’s answer of “I don’t know”, only to kick her off the bridge.</p><p>Simon, unlike any other passenger shown, doesn’t change his beliefs, values, perspectives, behavior, or even interpersonal skills over the course of his character arc. For all his boldness, for all the emphasis on the people of the Apex being “brave”…his arc ended lethally from his inability to confront his fears and fight through his emotional pain.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="footnotes">
  <hr/>
  <ol>
<li>

<p><sub>It is possible her desire changed between Alrick’s death and some time after getting on the train; she may have initially desired her own death until she believed she could recreate her old life using the train. <a class="footnote-backref" href="https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/640810154388029440/how-to-get-your-number-down-to-zero-part-2-of#fnref:1">↩︎</a></sub></p>
</li>
<li>

<p><sub>It’s only an educated guess she was trying to die; what else could she have been planning to do that evening when heading to the university building? However, she does pause in front of the building and seems surprised then it loses its roof. She may have gotten to the roof to investigate why that happened: since the train can modify its appearance to lure in passengers, this makes sense. Tulip tried to walk to Oshkosh at night in a Wisconsin winter with only a light jacket: she was so emotionally distraught as to unwittingly put her in danger of death by hypothermia. Similarly, “in physical danger due to emotional distress” may have matched Amelia’s motive when the train appeared. <a class="footnote-backref" href="https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/640810154388029440/how-to-get-your-number-down-to-zero-part-2-of#fnref:2">↩︎</a></sub></p>
</li>
<li>

<p><sub>His line: “Sorry to be the voice of reason again, but there’s no body!” in “The Campfire Car” doesn’t count; it’s exasperation phrased in a way that’s mildly polite or passive-aggressive. In Book 2, he says: "I’m so sorry you two had to see this. I tried to take care of it before you came back.” It’s not actually apologetic. </sub> <a class="footnote-backref" href="https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/640810154388029440/how-to-get-your-number-down-to-zero-part-2-of#fnref:3">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The author loves comments. Please provide feedback here, or on the author's Tumblr or Pillowfort.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. How to Achieve Emotional Growth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>Emotional Vulnerability</strong>
</p><p>
Passengers who are still trapped do not adequately deal with their feelings: most notably, their sadness. Mere acknowledgment of one’s turmoil is helpful, but no passengers shown have gotten their number to zero from acknowledgment of turmoil alone. It seems emotional vulnerability is very useful, even essential, for getting one’s number down.<br/>
Tulip cries when someone can see her when Amelia hits Atticus with the transformation ray, and briefly cries when she tells Amelia she doesn’t know what it’s like to “lose someone you love”, and she cries when she realizes she must leave Atticus and One-One.<br/>
Although Jesse never outright cries, he still discloses his sadness and similar emotions to others, most notably when he’s talking about his little brother Nate in “The Toad Car”.<br/>
While Grace is still trapped by Book 3’s end, she’s certainly had a lot of crying: she cries during Tuba’s funeral, while trapped in the memory tape, when Hazel leaves her, when she confronts Simon and says he’s in a lot of pain (though then she cries only slightly), and while kneeling over Simon’s ashes.</p><p>In contrast, Simon and, initially, Amelia are limited in their emotional expressions around others, especially in their sadness.<br/>
Amelia seems to disapprove of crying: she mockingly tells Tulip to not cry. When Simon cries in the “We won’t tell Simon” memory reveal scene, he cries silently while everyone is asleep. Though deeply upset in Le Chat Chalet, he doesn’t cry; his responses are largely anger and obvious frustration. The one time he cries when others might be able to see him is after he seemingly kills Grace. He laughs evilly, cries within seconds, and tries to laugh it off while pressing his hands over his ears, as if trying to block something out (a conscience, perhaps).<br/>
Indeed, though Simon was baffled, frustrated, and angered at Grace’s sudden changes in behavior, he didn’t confront her about it with anything but bafflement, frustration, and anger, when he confronted her at all.</p><p>Later in “Vulnerability: The Key to Better Relationships”, Mark Manson states: “And it’s a shining example of vulnerability because you’re saying “I have a problem. I’m not perfect, but that’s okay. I can deal with it, and I will deal with it.” In a scene set seven months after she either enters or leaves the train, Tulip says she’s “ready for anything”, suggesting Mark Manson’s words characterize a successful passenger. In contrast, Mark Manson’s words certainly do not describe Simon; he rarely admitted he had a “problem”.</p><p>
  <strong>Discarding of Concepts, Desires, or Motives</strong>
</p><p>It seems passengers can get their numbers to 0 by letting go, giving up, moving on, or otherwise no longer caring about or being badly affected by a particular issue the memory tapes suggest is highly important. Passengers who could do that eventually got their numbers to zero, while those who didn’t, Amelia and Simon, ended up, respectively, still trapped and maxed-out (and dead).</p><p>However, it’s hard to determine letting go, giving up, moving on, or otherwise no longer caring about an issue is the cause for all instances of numbers going down. Indeed, if one thinks of Jesse’s issue as “caring too much about what others think of him/trying to be friends with everyone”, he got his number to zero by caring: actions motivated by caring about Lake. When Jesse confidently, even aggressively, rejects Simon’s attempt to soothe him and downplay what was happening, shows a spine in the face of peer pressure from the “cool kids”, and tells Lake “I got you. We’re getting out of here”, his number goes from 22 to 0, and it’s unclear which action did this or how much of an effect each action had.</p><p>
  <strong>Re-Evaluation</strong>
</p><p>Successful passengers re-evaluate their beliefs, values, perspectives, perceptions, or behavior. Tulip had the self-awareness to realize she had distorted her own memories to show her life pre-divorce as entirely happy, Jesse re-evaluated the cool kids that put his brother in a dangerous man test, and Grace came to realize that denizens were people, causing much of her Apex beliefs to collapse.</p><p>Amelia apparently got her number so high by repeating the same maladaptive coping mechanism over and over for 33 years: she “ran away” from adapting to a life without Alrick. She says “there’s a hole in the universe where Alrick used to be”, but it seems that for 33 years, she didn’t try to patch over that hole with anything but a perfect recreation of her life before the train.</p><p>In contrast to Tulip, who realized she was wrong about how she thought about her parents’ divorce, Simon never admitted he was wrong. (Him telling Grace “You were right not to trust [Amelia]!” aside) He did not even quietly re-evaluate or discard his Apex beliefs and beliefs about numbers, despite repeatedly facing evidence it was wrong and seeing all the harm it had accomplished. In a way, he “ran away” from his problems and denied most of his problems even existed, with the notable exception of his relationship problems with Grace. Furthermore, the rarity of him confronting his trauma, turmoil or insecurities trapped Simon in a dogmatic and aggressive spiral until his number maxed out and he, briefly, became unhinged from the weight of his actions until he was killed.</p><p>
  <strong>Specific Actions</strong>
</p><p>It’s hard to tell if there are any standardized actions of getting one’s number down by a certain value or percentage of the whole, even for the same passenger.</p><p>Although “kicking the toad” (in The Toad Car) clearly has a value of 5 for Jesse (29 changes to 34), his number seems to go up by 2 (29 to 31) when Alan Dracula strongly kicks the toad, and it seems to go up by only 1 when he halfheartedly kicks a cube in “The Mall Car”.<br/>
It’s possible “letting the toad go free” brought Jesse’s number down by 17, or by more than half its original number. But the preceding sequence wasn’t just letting the toad go free: Jesse freed the toad to ensure he, M.T., and Alan Dracula could escape the Flecs, since The Toad Car required kicking the toad to leave the car. The real number-lowering reason could have been “stick with Lake and help her out, even knowing she broke Mirror Law and has been lying about her history”, letting the toad go free to ensure he and his friends could escape was just the particular way he carried that out.</p><p>Tulip’s journey also supports the idea the amount a number drops is context-specific or largely unpredictable. Tulip’s number goes down when she recalls a happy memory with her dad, but being in her tape, which was full of happy memories with her parents (both true and false ones) didn’t bring her number down until she confronted the false memories. Notably, she had tweaked the particulars of the happy memory of fixing go-karts with her dad to support her idea of "work first, play later", and her number only goes down when she acknowledges parts of her memories which don't fit that idea.</p><p>People’s numbers might be dependent on other people, in the sense of close relationships with others. Certainly, passenger-denizen interaction can lower a number (see Grace with Hazel and Tuba), but so can passenger-passenger interaction. For example, in the “Hey Ho Whoa” car, when Amelia said she didn’t really want to ask for help, but really appreciated Grace’s cooperation, her number went down by at least three digits.</p><p>Complicating things, there are times when number responses seem to have a time delay. When the freed toad leaves Jesse in “The Toad Car”, Jesse’s number goes from 31 to 14 instantly. Jesse’s number goes from 22 to 0 after a sequence where he confidently (even aggressively) rejects Simon’s attempt to soothe him and downplay what was happening, shows a spine in the face of peer pressure from the “cool kids”, and tells M.T. “I got you. We’re getting out of here.” It’s possible he did several number-lowering things that could have been counted separately, or a single very number-lowering thing with a time delay.</p><p>It’s possible a number only goes down if an action, thought or belief “sinks in” or if passengers are aware of what they’re doing. When Tulip tells Amelia she can still bring her number down, Amelia’s number goes down before she even speaks, therefore suggesting even thinking in the right direction can get someone’s number down.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The author loves comments. Please provide feedback here, or on the author's Tumblr or Pillowfort.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
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